Cosmic Pessimism
Eugene Thacker
A chat with Eugene Thacker. Can we rethink the world as unthinkable, and without us?
Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
A chat with Eugene Thacker. Can we rethink the world as unthinkable, and without us?
Location: Around and about the old public library in Easterhouse; disinvested in and left to rot by the council but which was shamelessly, hastily and superficially cleaned by them in expectation of our event.
A drone installation populated by flourescent strip lights working in complicity with analogue radios – “all the lights just do their thing”.
Harrowing but musical confrontations with the very real, physical and aural trauma of a woman screaming.
A panel exploring how to dismantle the master’s house — its material edifices and ideological architecture — and the construction of abolitionist futures in the present.
These simple, one-take videos, relate personal experiences to the current conflicts in the Middle East via the most basic of means (a hotel room, a camcorder, John’s personal thoughts, concerns and convictions).
Imagery, drawn from what seems like hundreds of different films is overlaid and combined in a promissory rainbow of new meanings and impossible scenarios, with the unsettling feel of daylight shadows.
Taku’s actions strip back musical performance to one of its original proposals: what is an action and how does it create a situation for spending time together, for paying attention?
We asked Christoph to come and give a sort of informal talk, raising some of his ideas about sound and image, and playing/ showing a few examples.
Akio Suzuki and John Butcher performing in an old underground reservoir in Fife.
From really simple, open instructions, An Unrhymed Chord creates a kind of half-way point between composition and improvisation.
An utterly deep introspection told in aching, weeping guitar lines; melodic, simple, always minimal but somehow entirely epic.